Drowning on Dry Land: an erotic short story Read online

  Drowning on Dry Land

  an erotic short story

  Megan Hart

  Chaos Publishing

  Contents

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Excerpt

  Also by Megan Hart

  About the Author

  Blurb

  Some doors stay open until you close them.

  Moving on from a past love, Bette Douglas has discovered a whole new world of satisfaction and contentment with her boy Damian...but when the past comes knocking, Bette's decision to answer it could change everything.

  Copyright © 2016 by MEGAN HART

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN-10: 1-940078-25-3

  ISBN-13: 978-1-940078-25-0

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  He kissed her for the first time in Paris.

  On a bench in the shadow of the replicated Eiffel Tower, she’d shivered at the chill she hadn’t expected in Las Vegas. The neon lights sent colored bars and shifting shadows over his face as he smiled. She’d made sure there was a space between them even though she wanted desperately to touch him. He kissed her anyway.

  Now, of course, put in that same place, she wouldn’t hesitate, not even for a second.

  She would take him by the front of the shirt and pull him close to get at his mouth. She would linger over the taste of him. Now, she would devour him.

  But there was no more now. Only memories that clung to her like wet fabric, heavy and tangling around her so that she felt as though she were suffocating. Drowning on dry land. Loving him had killed her, but she was taking a very long time to die.

  Chapter 2

  Bette Douglas came home to the smell of something delicious simmering on the stovetop, the light of candles, and a glass of red wine already poured for her. She toed off her shoes by the front door and hung up her coat and bag in the closet, eyeing the elegantly set dining room table through the archway. The candlelight glinted against the crystal wineglass’s ruby contents. Her stockinged feet whispered on the hardwood floor as she went into the dining room to take a drink, savoring the rich, earthy flavors.

  Her boy was not in the kitchen, though the spoon in the rest next to the stove hinted that he’d been there not so long ago. Bette lifted the lid on the pot to breathe in the mouth-watering scent of homemade tomato sauce, thick with garlic and vegetables. She took a peek into the oven, too, which was warming thick slices of Italian bread soaked with olive oil and spices. She pulled the bread from the oven and covered it with the waiting sheet of aluminum foil to keep it warm while she looked for Damian.

  She found him in the bedroom. Black lace panties cupped his tight, round ass and bulged in the front, not nearly big enough to cover his thick cock. Through the lace, the metal of his chastity cage glinted. He was on his knees, back straight but head bowed. Arms behind him, wrists crossed. He’d been waiting for her.

  “Hello, love,” she said, which was his permission to look at her.

  “Ma’am.” Damian’s grin lit up his whole face. “How was your day?”

  Bette gestured with a flick of her fingers, encouraging him to rise as she went to the dresser to place her glass. “It was all right. Nothing exciting. Glad to be home. Dinner smells delicious, sweetheart, how did you know I was in the mood for pasta?”

  Damian came up behind her to nuzzle the back of her neck. “Lucky guess?”

  Bette turned in the circle of his arms to take his face in her hands. Damian stood only a few inches taller than her. His height had been one of the reasons she’d been so attracted to him at first. She’d always preferred tall men, but funny how you could get imprinted on something that changed how you felt. She studied his smile and the light in his pale blue eyes, the color of a cloudless summer sky. Soft blond hair peaked above a high hairline, and he wore it close-cropped, much shorter than she preferred. He would never have turned her head if they’d passed on the street, but he’d become beautiful to her because he was hers.

  Her melancholy had been triggered by the walk home under fall-turning leaves, the far-off hint of an old, familiar song and a hint of cologne on a passing stranger. The sadness had hit her with a relentless ferocity, but standing in front of her lover, Bette pushed away the memories of that other man. Why should she spend her time dwelling on the past when she had something precious right here in front of her?

  She kissed Damian lightly, letting the caress linger but without pressure. She pushed her face into the curve of his shoulder so he could hold her. He smelled of soap and flesh, never cologne. She’d told him she didn’t like it, which was a lie but one she didn’t feel bad about telling him.

  They rocked slowly together for a few moments. She nibbled at his neck and laughed at the sharp hiss of his breath. Then again when she slid a hand up his naked torso to pinch his nipple. Then his hiss became a groan, and when she pulled away to look at his face, his eyes had gone heavy lidded. His lips parted, wet from the swipe of his tongue.

  It had been four weeks since she’d last permitted him an orgasm. When she cupped his cock through the lace, the metal of his chastity cage felt warm on her palm. Bette let her fingertips tickle downward over his balls, which were not contained by the device. They tightened delightfully at her exploration.

  “So pretty,” she murmured as she slipped down the panties, freeing him to her grasp.

  Damian shivered but moved to put his feet shoulder-width apart, giving her ample access to every part of him. “Thank you, Ma’am.”

  “I always think I prefer you in lace, until I see you naked,” Bette told him.

  He grinned. “I like being naked for you.”

  They’d been together for almost a year. He’d moved into her apartment after six months because everything had been working so perfectly. It still did. Maybe one day, Bette thought as she circled around him, a finger tracing a line from his belly to the small of his back, maybe one day she would stop expecting it all to end.

  “I’m hungry,” she whispered against his back. She let her lips move over his shoulder blades. Her tongue flickered at the knobs of his spine. Her fingertips pressed the twin dimples above his ass.

  “I made a salad.” Damian’s voice rasped. His skin had humped into gooseflesh under her caresses. “We can start with that while the pasta cooks…”

  “Perfect.” Bette finished her circle to face him again. “Actually, I’m going to jump in the shower before we eat. It’s been a long day.”

  “Are you all right?” He knew her moods the way he’d known she’d be hungry for pasta.

  “Fine,” Bette said. Another lie, but also one she didn’t feel guilty about. “Tired. Chilly. Hungry. That’s all.”

  Damian knew better, she could tell, but he nodded and didn’t press her for more information. “I’ll go start the water boiling. Everything will be ready by the time you’re finished.”

  She assessed him. “First, I want you to go to the drawer and bring me the emerald plug.”

  Three inches wide, surgical-grade steel, capped with a pretty cut glass emerald that provided a wide base for the toy and kept it safe. It was one of he